


A collar like a noose and a wedding proposal

by arthur_177



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Coulson Lives, M/M, avengers kinkmeme, dub-con/coercion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:46:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_177/pseuds/arthur_177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not wearing anyone's collar to be Hawkeye, because he doesn't have to. He made that call a long time ago, and Coulson made it again when he recruited him for SHIELD.</p><p>Except Coulson is dead because he'd been compromised. Clint's an Avenger because of Coulson, and Coulson is dead because of him. Clint's not a genius, but it doesn't take a genius to do the math. Coulson would have wanted him to stay on the the team.</p><p>He glares at Steve and says 'If that's what it'll take to stay on the team, I'll wear your collar. Sir.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	A collar like a noose and a wedding proposal

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the avengers kinkmeme: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11264.html?thread=25929984#t25929984; the prompt was a lot more Clint/Steve, but this sort of happened. I've put in a warning for dub-con/coercion because, as it's a BDSM Universe AU, Clint ends up being forcibly collared, but there is no sexual element to that. This is my first attempt at writing a BDSM Universe thing, and I don't quite know how that happened, either. I hope you enjoy anyway.

When Coulson gives him the recruitment talk for SHIELD, Clint's in a place where he can theoretically say no, but it'll come at a price. But Clint has standards, and notions of what constitutes a life worth living, so he is willing to say no and deal with the repercussions. Granted, there isn't much dealing involved, because all he'll have to do is say 'I'd like a steak, and if you can, make it a double whisky in addition to that' to the pleasant sub they're going to send concerning his last meal requests. 

Agent Coulson says 'I think you have potential, Mr. Barton', and Clint has heard that one before. He opens his mouth to tell the suspiciously nice SHIELD person that he can cut his 'I'm going to pretend not to state the obvious, but I'm a Dom and you're a sub, and it's about time you kneel and say 'of course, anything you want, sir'' crap, that Clint isn't going to bow down and take anyone's collar ever again, when Coulson says 'Should you chose to accept our offer, I expect you to treat me with respect and obey my orders, because SHIELD is essentially a military organisation. I do however promise you, Mr. Barton, that I will never force you to kneel or obey me simply because I'm a Dom, and that as long as I am your handler nobody will ever get near you with a collar.' 

Clint shuts his mouth. When he opens it again, a part of him expects to say what he was planning to do in the first place, because he's had a couple of years of experience in being Clint Barton, who is damn good with a bow but also a sub, in this world, and civil rights may be lightyears from what they used to be, but there'll always be people who think they can put him in his place just because he's a sub, just because they are wearing a uniform. 

Instead, he tells Coulson he'll take him up on his word, and that he'll be sorry if Clint finds out that Coulson didn't mean every single word. 

Agent Coulson smiles at him and says 'I'm looking forward to working with you, Mr. Barton.' 

It's not until Clint's on the private plane SHIELD had sent his way that he realizes that, advanced as matters might be, Coulson never insisted on the common courtesy that he as a sub call him sir. 

He starts a mental list that day, of things Coulson says and does that might make it worth trusting him to be the upstanding progressive Dom he pretends to be. It takes Clint about twenty missions and a year to believe that there really is no catch, that that's just who Coulson is. 

There isn't much Doms can do nowadays, but Clint nevertheless tends to accumulate a register of reprimands and comments and negative evaluation sheets wherever he goes. Subs have rights, sure, but that doesn't mean that Doms like it when they mouth off over comms, or refuse to kneel in public, or say 'sir' in the same way they say 'and fuck you too, asshole, that was a shite call to make and you know it'. Clint expects SHIELD to be like that, because everyone is like that on some level. Giving Doms the benefit of the doubt is a futile exercise in Clint's experience. 

When he's been working for SHIELD for a year, and Coulson doesn't even summon him for a formal reprimand once, he's starting to wonder whether maybe Coulson is the one Dom deserving of Clint's benefit of the doubt. 

After two years, there is a mission which goes badly wrong, and Coulson has his back during the debrief with an asshole of an agent from the WSC, and Clint doesn't quite know what comes over him, but he ends up on his knees, looking at Coulson's boots, and says calmly 'Sir, with respect, my Dom's estimation of the situation is flawless, and attempting to coax me into acting according to my reputation and say something discriminating against him is a waste of everyone's time.'

The WSC leaves them in peace, and Coulson writes him a formal commendation. Coulson also asks him if he'd like to have dinner, and a talk. 

They have dinner, and they talk, and a lot of things happen, none of which were what Clint expected when he agreed to work for SHIELD. 

If Coulson is the one Dom in all of SHIELD for whom Clint will kneel and affirm orders with a 'yes, sir' without any hint of sarcasm in his voice, nobody has the lack of common sense to say anything about it. 

 

Clint was collared once. To say that he didn't like it... well, metaphors and comparisons and other rhetorical devices were always Coulson's thing. He remembers being pushed to his knees, the collar cutting off his breathing, and the 'I'm disappointed that you refuse to be good for sir, Clint. I'm not sure that I like a sub like that in the position I've granted you.' cutting into everything else. 

When they brought Cap in, Coulson had taken his hands gently and said, sitting on the same level as Clint, talking to him like he'd talk to another Dom after a rough mission, 'Things were different back then. That is no excuse for anything he does, but there is a lot at stake here. If Fury's plan comes together and he becomes the leader, he may well not know how to handle matters. If he's out of line, you tell him, you tell me, you make sure this is on file, because I'll have my childhood hero abuse any of SHIELD's subs over my dead body. But maybe cut him a little slack. You're not acting like a sub would have in his days, Clint, and you know I love you for your willingness to push limits, but he might not see it this way. Just.. make informed decisions. If he's out of line, call it. If you're pushing a bit hard, admittedly – then maybe consider smiling and saying 'yes, sir' now and then.'  
Clint had wanted to say, bitterly, that he'd met people like Steve, and they'd put a collar around his neck in the name of what was just and right and simply the way things were, Clint, now go and be a good sub for Sir, we don't have time for any of this equal rights nonsense in an organisation like this. But Coulson had never hidden anything from Clint, and Coulson had looked both the most happy and the most terrified Clint had ever seen him, and so Clint had kissed his hand and said 'I'll try, Sir, but no promises'. Coulson had smiled and taken him to dinner, like a friend, like an equal. Clint had taken Coulson to bed, like an equal, but he'd savoured every expression on Coulson's face as he'd gone down to his knees, wrists clasped behind his back.

Coulson is dead now, because of him, because of Loki. They are a team now, Coulson's team, and making sure that they remain a team is all Clint has left now. Coulson would have wanted him to stay on the team, because Coulson had pushed boundaries from the moment he'd recruited Clint, and pushing boundaries wasn't exactly in Coulson's nature. Clint had allowed himself to be compromised, had allowed Coulson to be killed by the entity who compromised him – staying on the team is all he has left, a final toast to Coulson which said everything and nothing about what he felt for his handler. 

Steve shouts at him, and he shows him the door. He says that he cannot operate under the current conditions, that he's had a sub far less obnoxious and disobedient than Clint who likewise wouldn't take a collar and wouldn't act as befitted a sub, and that he had to bury half a regiment because of that sub. Steve says he's not going to make the same mistake again, so Clint can either stay the way he is and walk, or take Steve's collar and behave for once. 

Clint would have told him where to stick it, in front of all of SHIELD, in front of the world, because that shit is not ok, not even if you're Captain America, particularly not if you're Captain America. This isn't the 40s, and being all but sold into slavery, and people looking at you in funny ways for saying that you let your sub go out for dinner with their friends, because subs weren't supposed to have a life, or a personality, or anything beyond what their Dom deemed they should have. Clint would have said that he was on this team because Coulson believed that he could be in this team, and so fuck Steve, he's got no right to say anything against what Coulson determined. He's not wearing anyone's collar to be Hawkeye, because he doesn't have to. He made that call a long time ago, and Coulson made it again when he recruited him for SHIELD.

Except Coulson is dead because he's been compromised, and Clint remembers the way Coulson's eyes had lit up when he'd said 'I convinced Fury. You're in on the Avengers Initiative. Now nobody will ever be able to say anything against you, against SHIELD subs in battlefield and exec positions. You're an Avenger, Clint Hawkeye Barton'. 

Clint's an Avenger because of Coulson, and Coulson is dead because of him. Clint's not a genius, but it doesn't take a genius to do the math. 

He glares at Steve and says, 'With respect, sir, if that's what it'll take, I'll take your collar, and I'll behave. Coulson would have wanted me on the team, and if that's what I have to do, well, how do you want me. Sir.'

Steve sighs, but he tells him to kneel and puts the Stark Industries collar on his neck anyway. The collar snaps shut, and unlike the high quality but simply buckled collar he's been put in in the past, this one can't be taken off by the sub. If Steve wants him in a collar, Steve will have him in a collar, and there is nothing Clint can do about it. 

He breathes in, and out. Coulson wanted him on the team. Coulson was the only Dom he ever took, the only one whose collar he'd ever have accepted, but Coulson's dead. Clint owes him this much. 

The collar chokes him. Clint asks permission to go to the range to relax, and in his defence, all Steve does is sigh and tell him not to overdo it, they have a briefing at 7:00 and need him in top form. He's wearing Steve's collar now, so Steve has the right to do a lot more. 

Clint bows to Steve and takes his bow to the range and shoots until his arms hurt more than everything else. Coulson would have wanted him to stay on the team. 

The collar is tight and cold around his throat, and it causes a tingling sensation when it recharges and reconnects to the Dom's remote control every couple of minutes. Clint tries to focus on the bow, tries to focus on not choking.

Coulson would have wanted him to stay on the team. 

There is a press conference, and he's kneeling next to Pepper, head bowed, while she handles the questions. He wouldn't have wanted to do his own press conference in the first place, but now that he's Steve's collared sub, he can't, because if Captain America's sub is mouthing off to the press, then that implies that Captain America is in no position to lead the Avengers given that he can't even control his sub in public, and if Clint gives the press cause to get that impression, then the whole Initiative is scrapped, and it's not only about Clint's staying on the team anymore. He stares on the ground and clenches his teeth so hard his jaw hurts as the journalists coo and squee and say how wonderful and even adorable that is, how everyone had wondered about Cap taking a sub one of these days, but how lovely it is to see Hawkeye collared, now that everyone else on the team has someone to look out for them, or someone to call their own. The New York Times has a big picture of Cap petting the hair of a kneeling Clint, and Clint would very much like to know who took that picture so he can put an arrow through their camera for their troubles. 

Sitwell sits him down and gives him the official briefing. The only reason Clint doesn't punch him in the face in the privacy of the Helicarrier is that Sitwell says in his usual unflappable way that he gets how much it sucks, but that ten years ago him kneeling next to Hill when they were trying to set up SHIELD was perhaps the thing that tipped the balance and made the WSC buy Fury's speech of providing a stable environment for the protection of earth, with every Dom and sub working together to make it happen in a clear and functional chain of command. 

Sitwell also quietly mentions that Coulson used to say that he would trust Clint Barton with anything and everything, and that nothing could break him, which was why he knew Barton would have his back even if all of SHIELD gave him grief about taking on a mouthy, disobedient sub. 

Clint reckons he's misjudged Sitwell, and asks if he can still punch Cap in the face if he orders him to suck him off in public. 

Sitwell laughs and tells him to cut Cap some slack, because he might be offensively old-fashioned, but he's not a total asshole. 

Clint scratches his throat next to the collar, which medical tells him isn't inflamed because he's allergic to the collar, it's just psychosomatic. Coulson trusted him, and Coulson trusted Cap, and Coulson wanted both of them on the team. The collar is tearing him apart, but that's good enough for him. Even if he's going to give Coulson's headstone one hell of a talk about that. 

Tony starts to look at him differently. That's .. unexpected. Clint does his job, and he tries to be nice to Steve, what with Steve being his Dom now and all that, but he never thought Tony would have an issue with the way Clint wears a collar and nevertheless obviously fails at being a good, obedient sub.

It's not until the next mission, when Clint ends up in medical and the collar is too tight to get a laryngoscope in so they can put him on a respirator during surgery, when the anaesthetist says that he can't take the collar off because it's a Stark Industries one, and in any case it's none of his business because Clint's Dom hasn't given consent for surgery, when the surgeon curses both the anaesthetist and Clint's Dom and says that as far as she is concerned, they can both go to hell as long as she finds someone with the balls to get Clint sedated enough so she can operate and save his fucking life, that he realizes why Tony's looking at him differently. 

Tony says 'I'll deal with his Dom, just go and operate already' and does something complicated on his Stark Pad which causes the collar to fall off. 

Clint's pretty sure that he can match the relief the surgeon lets show on her face bit by bit. 

He wakes up in medical, and the first thought he has is that he's died, because Coulson is sitting next to him in a wheelchair, looking pale but very much alive. 

He says “I'm sorry, Sir, I tried – I never meant to be this much of a disappointment to you”, and Coulson just looks at him, takes his hand, and says “Barton, I don't know yet how to make this right, and whether I'll ever be able to look at Captain America in the same way again, but rest assured that there was nothing you did, nor is there nothing you could ever do, that disappointed me.”

He fades back to sleep shortly after he's realized that Coulson is not a figment of his imagination; he sleeps through Coulson shouting at Fury for letting this happen, for never briefing Rogers properly on just how much matters have changed in the military and otherwise, for forcing him to tell Stark that he may be the only one with common sense and decency out of all of them. He's awake when Coulson tells Steve that if he dares to try and establish his authority over Clint in that way again, he will personally see to it that Captain America is court-martialled for assault, mistreatment of a subordinate and abuse of power. 

Clint would feel sorry for Steve, because he sort of understand that Cap did all of this, in a messed-up and roundabout way, to help him, to be what he was brought up to think of as a good Dom, but then the memory of collars past and present are a bit close for comfort just now. He reckons forgivance can wait a while. 

Clint gets discharged, Steve formally retracts all ownership he had over Clint (although Pepper advises not to have a press conference about all of this for a while, which Clint is perfectly happy with because he wasn't exactly a fan of the last press conference), he moves back in with Coulson, and for a while everything is fine.

Except it isn't, because Clint wakes up with nightmares he hasn't had in years, of his first Dom, a lifetime ago, telling him that he would take his collar, Clint, or he would take the bow away again and sell him to the highest bidder, because it wasn't as if a kid from the circus could go to the sub protection authorities and tell them that he'd run away from his foster parents and the orphanage and had been living on petty crime until the circus took him in without getting himself into worse trouble than he was already in, and at some point his Dom morphs into Steve who tells him that he'll take his bow away, because it's not as if a kid who'd ended up being Loki's had much of a say in how he was going to be treated in the aftermath. 

Coulson holds him whenever he starts awake from the nightmares, shaking or covered in ice-cold sweat or sometimes sobbing, and tells him that it'll be fine, he's got him. 

Clint holds Coulson when he starts awake from nightmares Clint knows nothing about, but the way in which Coulson holds onto him for dear life and tells him that it's ok, that he's not going to let anyone hurt him again, tells him more than he is comfortable with knowing of the things which constitute Coulson's nightmares. 

The better days aren't exactly problem-free, either. One day, Coulson asks, in that throwaway exasperated manner which used to characterize their interaction, whether Clint is ever going to learn to be a good sub just this once and do mission reports on time. 

Coulson has said that a million times, and Clint has replied something along the lines of 'I'm hurt, sir, is a pretty face doing paperwork all I am to you?' as often. But now the weighting has changed, and Coulson comes to hold him carefully, as if he was fragile, and apologize in gentle, calming words as Clint freezes and drops the coffee cup he was about to bring to Coulson. 

Another day, Clint smiles at Coulson sleepily, still on the endorphins of being with Coulson, being taken apart and put together and held until he knew he was good and safe and wanted. Coulson runs a finger over Clint's throat, gently, and says, with some sadness, that he'd always meant to ask him, eventually, if he'd wear his collar, like a wedding proposal, but that he never got around to it, and now he can't ask anymore because of what happened. 

Clint hates being dragged out of good subspace more than anything, but this is Coulson, this is important, so he snaps out of it sufficiently enough to hold Coulson, because being a good sub is about more than kneeling and saying 'anything else I can do for you, sir', and tells him that there is one person he'd take a collar from without any having-no-choice or Avengers-related coercion, and that's Coulson. 

That's the night Coulson tells him to call him Phil, at least sometimes. 

Time passes, and things assemble again in less harmful ways. Steve apologizes, repeatedly, and Clint accepts after 'Steve Rogers, with a Stark Pad, reading up on Sub Rights' becomes a standard appearance in the Avengers Tower. He has a whole new appreciation for Pepper and Tony, whom he'd somehow seen as two Doms working for each other; the way in which Pepper shares looks with Phil and Tony argues with Steve take a whole different meaning now that Clint knows why Tony can and will override all codes for Stark Collars not taken out of a sub's free will, and what length Pepper went through to establish herself as CEO of a major company while being engaged to an outspoken, obnoxious and uncollared billionaire playboy genius sub. 

The next time he goes for lunch with Sitwell, whom he's established an odd sort of friendship with after the official talk business, Sitwell looks at the slim silver-and-leather collar that looks more like a part of field gear than a collar, congratulates him, and grins. When Clint asks what all the grinning is about, Sitwell says that both Hill and Fury owe him 50 bucks now, because he'd known from the start that if there was anyone in SHIELD Clint would ever accept a collar from, it'd be Coulson. 

When he tells Coulson, Coulson smiles and tells Clint to pick a present for himself, because he'd talked Sitwell into splitting the money in the unexpected but highly welcome event he'd actually win his bet.


End file.
